Allie K. Miller’s Post

Forced ranking. Stack ranking. Any HR professionals open to sharing your opinions or insights? Or managers in forced/stack ranking environments? Or individuals on their reactions when they realized they were working under these regimes? In the world, it is a shock to many employees when they encounter the annual ritual of sacrificing the "bottom ranking" members. 100% of many world class teams are all “above average.” So why let any of this creme de la creme go? fwiw, I am decidedly *not* a fan. However, we are all grown, consenting adults so let's not make believe that this does not exist. This is front of mind for me seeing AWS recently let go of what I know from my own personal experience to be dozens of top tier, world class professionals. Six months ago business news service CNBC posted the following exposé quoting a former Amazon attorney who defends the utility of ‘stack ranking’: Should a company rate its staff? A former Amazon exec says ‘stack ranking’ is useful when done right https://lnkd.in/gDbb52rb #forcedranking #hr #aws #annualreview #stackrank #stackranking

I've seen a few people in my feed calling out Andy Jassy for not mentioning or giving any credit to the employees of Amazon for their recent financial success (in their public filings). While that's accurate, I don't know that's it's fair to criticize Jassy for this, at least in comparison to the rest of his tenure as the CEO there. In particular, there's no data to support the idea that Jassy cares about the employees at all; remember, this is the same person who hired people as remote employees during the pandemic, and then brutally shifted the company's remote work policy in direct opposition to both the data and employee feedback, and effectively fired anyone who would or could not comply (which in some cases, meant upending their lives and families to relocate for the company). Jassy is a relentless cost-cutter, who (to his credit) is relentless focused on _his_ customers, the shareholders of Amazon. I'm 100% certain that Jassy would eliminate 99% of the employees of Amazon tomorrow, without any second thoughts, if he thought it would raise the net profits by even 5%. I'm certain Jassy views the human employees of Amazon as just an unfortunate business expense, and only marginally contributory to his personal efforts to optimize the company's profit margins. There are some really good/smart people who work hard to keep Amazon successful, and overall they have done a pretty good job as a company, and this post isn't intended to take anything away from that. I'm just noting that Jassy demonstrating that he doesn't care about, or even acknowledge, the work of the rest of the employees there is 100% in line with who he appears to be as a person and CEO, in my experience.

Massive Amazon Hack & Tip List - Day 46/365📝 -- Bottom Line: Lighting money on fire with low-value tasks is a no good, very bad idea. How is your time on your Amazon business truly being spent? Do you know? Are you doing tasks on a day-to-day basis that are less then your "hourly wage" ? (To get a rough idea of an hourly wage, take your business profits from the last year and divide by a 40 hour work week). Anything that's less then that hourly wage (within reason) should be cut out or given away to someone else. Without getting to into the weeds - It's a good practice to actually keep a written log of everything you do in a week. You'll be surprised at all the things you do that are low value tasks that can be outsourced. One of my favorite books on this subject is Mike Michalowicz's "Clockwork." Check it out. If you're looking for an app that helps with this kind of stuff, check out Toggl. https://buff.ly/3G00NKK What kind of tasks are you doing in your Amazon business that are below your hourly wage? If you're doing them, you're lighting money on fire. Here's some low-value tasks you might be doing already: 1. Inventory management 2. Packing boxes, labeling items, shipping 3. Customer service 4. Returns and refunds 5. Listing creation 6. Photo editing 7. Bookkeeping and financial record-keeping 8. Supplier communication 9. Data entry 10. Amazon Posts/Brand Tailored Promotions/Experiments/Manage Your Customer Engagement And since we're here... 10 high value tasks: 1. Product sourcing & research 2. Brand identity/mission 3. Business structure 4. SOP creation & team organization 5. Hiring 6. New market expansion 7. Variation creation 8. Securing loans, funding, etc. 9. Creative direction 10. Product innovation Did I miss any? Do you disagree with this list? ♻️ Repost with a friend who needs this :) -- #amazonfba #amazonfbaseller #amazonseller

Alright, gather round – here's the 411 on my Amazon hustle. I single-handedly spearhead 10 Amazon accounts. Yeah, you read that right. No hidden assistants, no outsourcing. Every meticulous detail? Yours truly. And for the record, I’m not in the game to cultivate an army of employees. Been down that road before. Ran a show with 50 of 'em, wore all the hats, played the whole managerial symphony. If I've got to steer the ship and also manage the crew? Heck, I might as well be the crew. So, I flipped the script. Now, the thrill lies in pushing the envelope: How massive can my revenue streams get flying solo? Breakdown? Sure: - Amazon Account Management pulls in a cool 70%. - Coaching (be it sellers, entire companies, or savvy agencies) and Consulting (the nuts and bolts, the strategy, the know-how) each chip in 12%. - My personal ventures in Amazon Seller Sales? That's another 6%. Got your attention? Here's what's brewing next: - Digital goodies on coaching and consulting are in the works. - Plus, brand ownership is on the horizon, which will pump up those seller sales. The kicker? Word on the street is I net more than some agencies bustling with 10-15 heads. And the cherry on top? That sweet, sweet payroll? All mine. No fretting about payday snafus or weekly budget dramas. So, while everyone's out there trying to build kingdoms, I'm over here running my own tight ship, proving you don't need a crowd to make a loud impact. #Amazon #Amazonfba #Amazonseller

This will likely be the model we see for the next few years in big tech. This particular instance is interesting because the 700 laid off were replaced with 700 possessing specific AI integration skills. Learn these skills to be safe for the next few years, but understand also that you'll be building systems that ultimately put you out of work too. And that's okay, it's just part of the cycle that invests human capital where it can provide the most value and automate the things that better serve the customer and the bottom line. This is how we evolve the world of work. It's how it's always worked. /// "Goodarzi made an unprecedented move in 2020—firing 715 employees, the first mass layoff in the company’s history. Moving AI to the core was going too slowly, Goodarzi felt, and Intuit’s ambitious reskilling program couldn’t work fast enough. He replaced the departing workers with over 700 new ones, largely people with AI skills. “We were starting to see momentum in our bets around data and AI,” he says, “but we knew we didn’t have the talent at the level that was needed to accelerate what was possible. We took those dollars and reinvested them in the craft skills we needed.” " #ai #layoff #employment #retraining

The future is Now! AI will be transforming all business not just big tech...

Over 980000 jobs completed with 141 of those jobs rejected. That is an error rate of 0.014%. Are you that good at your job? What is your error rate? What do you think your boss’ opinion of you would be, if you made so few mistakes? I can tell you what my overlords thought, they thought I wasn’t worth it. They closed my account. They took my pay for work I’d already completed. They locked me out of my personal records. They won’t return my emails. Sounds like an awful company, doesn’t it? I bet you’ve heard of them. I am (was) an Amazon Mechanical Turk worker. It is a platform controlled by Amazon where individuals or companies can post computer-based jobs. I thought I was just a number, but that can’t be true, because my number would have been a good one. I must be less than that to them. As a single mom to a special needs kid, the flexible work schedule was invaluable to me. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know how I will buy food, pay bills, or exist. At the very least, I don’t know how I’m going to make up for the days I have already worked and my pay was stolen. I’m already scrambling for another job. I’m already filling out every onboarding I can sign up for, to replace this style of work. The only style that allows me to care for my son. Starting over on a new platform will mean lower wages as I rebuild my reputation with job requesters. Amazon issues workers an ID number, and that is all job requesters know me by. I cannot take my reputation with me. If you are wondering how or why this happened, so am I. So are all the others that were suspended with me. Amazon gave no warning, reason, apology, or justification. They just took our earnings and slammed the door. Maybe Jeff needs another yacht. Not everyone who lost their account relies on it as heavily as I do mine, but that should not lessen the feelings of injustice. This is an abhorrent misuse of power on Amazon's part. I don’t have access to my account for any type of record keeping, be it taxes, CV building, or even contacting the individuals who paid my stolen wages to let them know they should ask Amazon for their money back. Personally, if I paid someone for a job, and they didn’t get the money, I would want to know. These requesters think their money went to workers when it has not. 

If you think As, Bs and Cs are only used in schools, think again. 📚️ “Stack ranking” is a employee rating system made popular in the 1980s by Jack Welch, the then-CEO of GE. Executives were categorized “A,” “B,” or “C,” with “C” performers likely to be laid off. Unsurprisingly, the system is controversial. But one former Amazon attorney who worked at the company for almost nine years says the technique has been “helpful” to his own career. “To have an ‘A’ team, you need to continually evaluate your talent,” said Alykhan Sunderji, who is now a managing partner at law firm Sunder Legal. Sunderji said stack ranking is familiar to many of his firm’s clients, which include people who formerly worked at firms like Amazon, Microsoft and space technology company Blue Origin. “In many cases, having a stack ranking system is actually helpful, because there’s an objective, collaborative process to evaluating employees,” he said. How would you feel if your company used stack ranking? Let us know in the comments. ⬇️ #employee #performance #feedback

I “retired” from Amazon as a Vice President 3.5 years ago, but it took 5 years of hard planning to get there. Now I have my own lifestyle business and do whatever I want. Here’s how to run your own “planning phase” and achieve the same thing: You will need: -Money -Health -Thinking time -Experiments Money: Leaving your job will take money. While you are still working, try to increase your compensation as much as possible and be thoughtful with your money. There are many ways to manage your money, but the important thing is that you do manage it. If your primary goal is to save enough to strike out on your own then it may make sense to "chase pay" in the short term, seeking roles or promotions that pay you the most. Health: Since leaving my job I have been able to take better care of my health; sleeping more and maintaining a healthy weight. This gives me the energy to work effectively when I do work. The lesson here is that you should also focus on your health while still working. This way, you can do better work, produce results, make money, and keep energy for the next steps. Set boundaries with work and make time for good sleep. You may receive push back on this at first, but your increased energy and results should make up for it. Thinking Time: With those boundaries set, you should have increased time to think and the energy to do it. Use this time and energy to think deeply and systematically about your work. If you commit to doing this regularly you will have breakthroughs about how you can work towards your retirement or your next project. Experiments: Thinking deeply and systematically about your works can lead to breakthroughs that can then be tested. These can be experiments outside of your job that relate to what you will do when you “retire”, or experiments at work that allow you to move closer to a promotion/raise. These experiments should be short, simple, and cheap ways to validate the ideas you come up with. For example, I experimented with Twitch live streaming, YouTube videos, writing on Medium, coaching, public speaking, and more to find the best ways to share my career insights with you. The “results” of those experiments are what I drive my business now. These experiments should work to show you what you like to do and what you are good at so that you can increase your income and your life satisfaction. At work, experiment with new projects, new departments, or new roles. It may take a while to find something you like that you can monetize, but the sooner you start experimenting the sooner you can find it. This will put you on the road to making money and doing what you are passionate about. Building the life you want can be a touchy subject for some people. I am writing from a position of privilege and I acknowledge that, but I am not saying that anything I say here is "easy" or will be immediately successful. What I am saying is that it is all possible and worthwhile.